Hawke's Bay company's Covid-19 treatment 'breakthrough', using tape worm drug

A Hawke's Bay-based biotechnology company is claiming a breakthrough that could mean an existing drug, used to treat tape worms, is repurposed as a potential treatment for Covid-19.

Estendart Holdings managing director Dr Alan Alexander said the company had filed an application for a provisional patent and is working with the New Zealand Ministry of Health to secure further funding for the next phase - developing a drug for a phase 1 human trial.

Alexander, more well known in the region for veterinary science, has spent the past nine months researching the anti-viral properties of a drug known as niclosamide which was identified by the Institut Pasteur Korea as the leading candidate for the treatment of Covid-19 in April last year.

Niclosamide has always had potential, but Dr Alan Alexander says the breakthrough has arrived. Photo / Paul Taylor

However, the drug was previously insoluble - meaning it could not be absorbed by the bloodstream when taken orally, preventing large amounts of the drug reaching the site of infection.

"It looked to be very effective," he said.

"The question is how to get it into the body."

EHL has developed a process for solubilising niclosamide, allowing it to be circulated within the bloodstream, which Alexander describes as a "breakthrough".

Niclosamide inactivates the coronavirus, which is spread by hijacking healthy cells and corrupting its RNA (ribonucleic acid) - genetic code carriers - to make copies of itself, killing the cell and repeating the cycle, he explained.

This antiviral activity means niclosamide could be developed as a potential treatment for Covid-19.

"Repurposing existing drugs for new uses is a common approach as it avoids the huge cost and delay in developing new medicines.

"A successfully repurposed drug can provide a treatment much faster than developing a new drug."

Alexander said niclosamide was "a gold seam that has tantalisingly remained just out of reach of drug developers" - until now.

He said while Covid-19 vaccines had been approved and have started to be rolled out around the globe, this took time and not everyone would be protected.

"A targeted treatment aimed directly at inactivating the virus is an essential part of a control programme, and this is what has been missing.

"It's a gap that needs to be filled."

He said the breakthrough also opened the door for niclosamide to be used in other treatments, having shown promise in controlling a variety of tumours and diabetes.

A spokesperson for the New Zealand Ministry of Health confirmed they were aware of Alexander and EHL's work.

"We are awaiting further documents concerning the formulation and the proposed basic and clinical research programme."